Now that the election is over, I have friends who are gloating and friends who are scared of what comes next for them or their kids or both. I wish everyone grace and peace and strength.
And here’s wishing peace and strength to my fellow veterans. My wife’s school held an assembly to honor veteran family members of students and staff. It’s the first thing like that I’ve been able to attend, and it was nice.
The Shouting
As in “It’s all over but…”
I was a little surprised at the election outcome, at least for President.
I think in the long run, the way the Democratic Party handled the switch from Mr. Biden to Mrs. Harris is a large part of what hurt them. They basically snuck the change in, hoping no one would notice that they (again?) ignored their own procedures and put forth the candidate the leadership wanted.
Do I think Mrs. Harris could have been a good President? Possibly.
Could she run again? Maybe? But I don’t think she should, and I don’t think the party should nominate her. I think she’s got too much baggage to be a “winnable” candidate at this point.
I’ve read a few pieces since the election that suggested that Mr. Biden never should have run for a second term, and one suggested that he should have been nominated instead of Mrs. Clinton in 2016. I think he was much healthier then, though I don’t know how he’d have handled the beginnings of the COVID epidemic.
Things progressed in Oklahoma as I expected. We had two state questions. One was a grandstanding ploy about citizen eligibility for voting, which passed. The other question covered public infrastructure districts, which are used to build or upgrade infrastructure in certain areas, and it went down, despite the way Oklahomans complain about our roads.
None of the Independents or Libertarians on the ballot won any of their races. I think the best showing was about 30% for an Independent in one of the state Senate races. It was nice to see so many Independents and Libertarians on the ballot, though. We had 18 candidates in 118 statewide races.
What’s Next
I don’t have TDS. But I don’t think he was that good of a president before, and I really don’t think he’s going to be any better. I really don’t think Mr. Vance will be a good VP or potential presidential candidate in 2028.
I have a lot of friends who are genuinely concerned about how their family members are going to be affected over the next four years. Some are actively exploring ways to leave the country. I empathize with them, and I hope they know I do.
I think a lot of people voted for Mr. Trump without understanding some of what he said he was going to do. Then again, I don’t think he understood some of what he said he’d do.
Just wait and see at this point, I suppose. Nothing can really change until January 20th, and nothing’s likely to change much after that.
Birthday Stuff
I mentioned in this week’s bonus post that my birthday was Monday. Diana got me a headlight I’ve been wanting, which will come in handy for evening cook sessions on the smoker. I had a headlight I’d bought fifteen years ago, but it was a very directional light with a pretty narrow beam. This one, the Lightband, has a very broad beam, close to 210°, with three settings and a red beam.
Number Two Son got me a Bluetooth lavalier mic for my phone, and I’m using a birthday check to pick up a DJI phone gimbal to help me with my video content.
You did know I’ve got TikTok and YouTube channels, right?
Writing
Made goal on Thursday and finished at +971 for the week.
So Ghost is sitting at 87.6k words right now. I could easily write another ten thousand words on this story and not finish it, which isn’t necessarily a good thing to admit. I know self-published stories have more flexibility when it comes to length, but there are still limits.
What I’m running into now is that I wonder if I can effectively finish both story arcs and keep it under 100k words.
Like, I know I can do it in general, but would it feel rushed?
I started wondering this past weekend if maybe I want to turn this into a two-part story. I’d already wondered about making it a series, or at least a universe where I can write not-necessarily-connected stories.
I need to do some research into word counts for paranormal stories, I think.
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